Before You Pray for Something, Do Your Homework to See if God Has Already Ruled on the Matter

Numbers Chapter 23: The Oracles of Balaam

Numbers 23:1-30

Day 76. Violent rioting continuing in the U.S. and the President calls for more force to be used. Lockdowns continue in many parts of the world. Curfews are in place in many parts of the U.S. America is more divided than ever before and regrettably, it seems that some kind of civil war may be the outcome. God forbid. We keep studied our Bible, looking for gems as to how we should live. Thank you for the encouraging notes people are leaving me.  Read on. 

The Passage

23 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.” ² Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. ³ Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a bare hill.

⁴ Now God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have set up the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.” ⁵ Then the Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and you shall speak thus.” ⁶ So he returned to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, he and all the leaders of Moab. ⁷ He took up his ^[a]discourse and said,

“From Aram Balak has brought me,
Moab’s king from the mountains of the East,
‘Come curse Jacob for me,
And come, denounce Israel!’
⁸ “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?
And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?
⁹ “As I see him from the top of the rocks,
And I look at him from the hills;
Behold, a people who dwells apart,
And will not be reckoned among the nations.
¹⁰ “Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let ^[b]me die the death of the upright,
And let my end be like his!”

¹¹ Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have actually blessed them!” ¹² He replied, “Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

¹³ Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from where you may see them, although you will only see the extreme end of them and will not see all of them; and curse them for me from there.” ¹⁴ So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. ¹⁵ And he said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offering while I myself meet the Lord over there.” ¹⁶ Then the Lord met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” ¹⁷ He came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the leaders of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?” ¹⁸ Then he took up his ^[c]discourse and said,

“Arise, O Balak, and hear;
Give ear to me, O son of Zippor!
¹⁹ “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
²⁰ “Behold, I have received a command to bless;
When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it.
²¹ “He has not observed ^[d]misfortune in Jacob;
Nor has He seen trouble in Israel;
The Lord his God is with him,
And the shout of a king is among them.
²² “God brings them out of Egypt,
He is for them like the horns of the wild ox.
²³ “For there is no omen against Jacob,
Nor is there any divination against Israel;
At the proper time it shall be said to Jacob
And to Israel, what God has done!
²⁴ “Behold, a people rises like a lioness,
And as a lion it lifts itself;
It will not lie down until it devours the prey,
And drinks the blood of the slain.”

²⁵ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all nor bless them at all!” ²⁶ But Balaam replied to Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘^[e]Whatever the Lord speaks, that I must do’?”

²⁷ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will be ^[f]agreeable with God that you curse them for me from there.” ²⁸ So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor which overlooks the ^[g]wasteland. ²⁹ Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”³⁰ Balak did just as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.

Footnotes

a.     Numbers 23:7 Lit parable

b.     Numbers 23:10 Lit my soul

c.     Numbers 23:18 Lit parable

d.     Numbers 23:21 Or iniquity

e.     Numbers 23:26 Lit saying, Whatever

f.      Numbers 23:27 Lit right in the sight of God

g.     Numbers 23:28 Or Jeshimon

Thoughts on the Passage

We observe that Balaam had Balak build altars and arrange for sacrifices to be made. And after that, Balaam went to a “bare hill” and God met him there to tell him what to say to Balak.

In verse 10, we hear Balaam saying to Balak, “I want to die the death of the righteous; and I want my end to be like that of the righteous.”  One commentator says, “anyone who wants to die the death of the righteous must first live the life of the righteous”.  Good point. We all want to die well and be treated well in death. We just aren’t so ready to live righteously. Robert Jamieson says, in so wishing but not living, Balaam is representative of a large class in the world – they “express a wish for the blessedness which Christ has promised to His people but are averse to imitate the mind that was in Him.”

We need to remember that in these attempts of Balak to get Balaam to curse Israel, he is going directly against something that God has already settled – God has blessed Israel to be a blessing, and woe to him who curses Israel.

Matthew Henry has us remember that Balak “pretended to honor the Lord with his sacrifices, and to wait for the answer God would send him; and yet, when it did not prove according to his mind, he forgot God, and flew into a great passion against Balaam.”

In the second message from God to Balak through Balaam (verses 18-24), God rebukes Balak and teaches him about the Divine nature of God – that unlike man, He does not lie or change His mind, that He always performs His word, and that He has all the strength. Furthermore, that He has not observed iniquity or wickedness in His people to warrant a curse. And in verse 22, God says He is like a wild ox on behalf of His people. David Guzik say, “wild ox is translated ‘unicorn’ in the KJV. The Hebrew word here (reem) occurs nine times in the O.T. The idea behind the Hebrew word is either of one horn or a mighty horn. Some think it refers to a rhinoceros, others to a wild ox, or a strong goat. It is not out of the question that a unicorn may be in mind.”

Not being happy with what Balaam tells him, Balak accuses him of actually blessing the Israelites rather than cursing them as he had asked for, and takes him to a second place, hoping things would turn out differently, but they didn’t. Balak now would even settle for Balaam to be neutral rather than bless or curse Israel.  And Balaam replies, “I will tell you whatever the Lord tells me to tell you as I had said.” And Balak takes him to yet a third place and the altars are built, and the offerings made.

Bottom line for me is this: If I am going to ask something of God, I better have done my homework [including studying my Bible] and made sure that I am not asking for something that God has already made a decision about. That’s why perhaps it is always better to attach to each of our petitions to God, the phrase, “nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done”. And then to real be able to accept happily (knowing it was the best option) whatever God’s will was for that matter. As a young lad, I lost many a potential spouse that way. As a young man, I lost many an opportunity to study something different that way. And then, I lost many a promotion or new job opportunities that way. As disappointed as I was, I knew that God’s choice for me – in my work, in my fields of study, and most importantly in my life’s partner – God’s choice for me was always superior.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Linking Being Unclean, the 1350 Plague, & the #MeToo movement

The Carcasses of Unclean Animals

Leviticus 11:24.28

²⁴ ‘By these, moreover, you will be made unclean: whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, ²⁵ and whoever picks up any of their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. ²⁶ Concerning all the animals which divide the hoof but do not make a split hoof, or which do not chew cud, they are unclean to you: whoever touches them becomes unclean.²⁷ Also whatever walks on its paws, among all the creatures that walk on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, ²⁸ and the one who picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; they are unclean to you.

Thoughts on the Passage

Chuck Smith considers all these rules are about God’s people staying clean and washing up. It’s about taking care of ourselves after touching dead carcasses. God, he says, is just teaching us “good hygiene”.

[An aside: And speaking of good hygiene, I am still appalled by how few people take the time to wash their hands after visiting a restroom.  And I’m not talking about those who may not know better, I’m talking about professionals – engineers and others.  I observed the omitting to do so practice for years in large corporate offices where I worked.]

David Guzik goes says that “Unclean animals, when dead, couldn’t just be left in the community to rot; they had to be disposed of. But the people who disposed of the unclean animals had to remedy their uncleanness by washing and a brief (until evening) quarantine.”  The whole point was to prevent disease and the spreading of disease – the kind that Europe experienced in 1350.  Even then, Jewish communities were “largely spared because they followed these hygienic regulations,” says Guzik.

What is sad, is, as Guzik goes on to say, “because they were often largely preserved, they were often accused and punished for being ‘masterminds’ behind the plague.”  (Sounds a lot like the claims of ‘white privilege’ many are accusing whites of these days.)

Taking the matter to some myths about how we treat people who may be “unclean” today, Guzik wants us to note that due to the fact this quarantine was short and required the thorough washing of clothes, it was a “ceremonial uncleanness” and thus did not mean the person was “in a state of sin”.  No sacrifice was required. The impurity just needed to be addressed.

Matthew Henry says those that were ceremoniously unclean were forbidden to go into the tabernacle for a while, or to eat of any of the holy things, or to even converse familiarly with their neighbors.

He draws a parallel between the uncleanness coming to an end at night just like our sin is all addressed by Christ’s death on Calvary that night He shed His blood for us.  Henry goes on to say, “And we must learn, by daily renewing our repentance every night for the sins of the day, to cleanse ourselves from the pollution we contract by them, that we may not lie down in our uncleanness.”

He points out that God allowed the use of animals for service in their daily work (e.g. farming), but once they were dead, they could not eat them – and what must not be eaten, must not be touched. (A reference to Genesis 3:3.)

With all the #MeToo activity going on today, this lesson is an important one for many of us to learn. Sometimes people in our lives are there for us to work together with, either in business, or on a project, or even in a ministry.  But they are not there for us to take advantage of in any way.  Anyone that has not been given to you as your spouse, is simply not to be touched in any way that would make you (or them) unclean. Work with them, help them, encourage them – but do not make them your possessions. Stay clean.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Stop Being a Half-Participant in God's Promises

Our Role in God’s Overthrow of Our Enemies and Adversaries.

Exodus 23:24: “You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces.”

Wait, we are not off the hook. God has a part for each of us to play in His destruction of our enemies and adversaries. Part of it is, admittedly, passive (things we are not to do), but part of it is very active (things we are to do). He says to the Israelites, “Do not worship their gods; do not serve their gods; and do not do the things they do which relate to their gods.” That’s the general intent of God’s warning to them.  But He goes on and tells them what to do with respect to these idolaters.

God is very clear here.  He tells the Israelites in the wilderness, that when they have to go across the lands of these people, whom you will remember God promised to destroy for them (vs. 23 in this chapter), in order to get to the promised land, they were to “utterly overthrow them and to break their sacred pillars into pieces.”  Matthew Henry suggests:

They must not only not worship their gods, but they must utterly overthrow them, in token of their great abhorrence of idolatry, their resolution never to worship idols themselves, and their care to prevent any other from worshipping them.

I understand that this was said to the Israelites in the wilderness thousands of years ago.  And many will argue it does not apply to us. Often the Enemy would have us believe that and disregard entire Old Testament theology. But yet, we are indeed crossing a wilderness right now and we are coming up against such enemy giants – not the least of which is the Islamic State with its goals to destroy the West in general and Israel in particular. (There are other idolatrous practices like abortion and euthanasia where people take on the role of God.) So, is there nothing for us to take, in a general sense, from this passage?  I believe there is and I disagree with those who say all we can do is pray. I believe we have a responsibility to uphold the worship and authority of God and to promote it; to protect the innocent; and to fight the intruders and idolaters.  I believe we need to understand that while God can do this single-handedly, He wants us to be active partners.  We, on the other hand, must realize that we cannot take the law into our own hands and thus are left to influence those who represent the law in our land – our various levels of government. To sit back and do nothing is not an option any more than burying our loaned talent in the sand so as not to lose it was in the famous New Testament parable, even though we know our Master expects us, as a minimum, to earn interest with it.

It saddens me to see Christian young people or adults waste their lives away, just waiting on God to do it all for them – from having the right future spouse just miraculously appear at their door while they stay home every night praying for that to happen; or for a promotion to come when they do nothing different to earn it but pray diligently for it. 

Are you only a half-recipient of God’s promises for you? Do you accept the passive instructions but not agree to the active requirements?  You need to do both.

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It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.